"Because," said the doctor, as ’Ost ’Uggins’s expressive features came peeking round the doorpost, "because a poor girl of twenty who has just given birth to——" "Given birth!" shrieked the woman. _"Given birth_! And in my ’ouse! "The disgraceful, shameless thing! And me to be kept in ignorance! And now I think of it, I did seem to think or fancy as I heered a squallin’. In _my_ ’ouse above all! May the Lord—— ’Ssh! What’s that?" "That," explained ’Ost ’Uggins, obtruding a further portion of his face, "is the little bleater callin’ for ’is vittles." Mrs. Muggins’s face grew strangely red, her lip grew strangely tremulous. "It’s a funny thing to me," she said, "to think as I wasn’t allowed to know.... ’Oo’s with ’er?" "Mrs. Tuck, from the cabyard," responded ’Ost ’Uggins, "’as laid the fondling out an’ that." Mrs. Huggins stamped a foot. "You clumsy fool!" she cried. "What do we want your Mrs. Tucks for? A drunken piece like she is! Ain’t you got enough to do in the bar without pokin’ your nose into a woman’s business like what this is? "And me the last to ’ear of it! In me own ’ouse, too! Me that has buried three. "Mrs. Tuck! Fools! Let me pass, you George! That child ’ll ’ave convulsions in a minute! ... Mrs. Tuck in my ’ouse!" * * * * * "I wish," murmured the doctor hopelessly, as he mopped his forehead, "that I could understand the rules of their Society." *XI* *THE DIAGNOSIS* I have heard it said by the enemies of Dr. Brink that he is surly, or, as some prefer to have it, brusque. I cannot too strongly express my disagreement with this view. I know the doctor intimately, and I can assert with confidence that in private intercourse he is the soul of courtesy, exactitude, and punctilio. If, during business hours, he becomes what Mrs. Duke calls "crisp"—and I won’t deny that this thing sometimes happens—it behoves us, as an audience of Christian people, to view this failing with the eye of charity, and to think of the temptations which the poor man has to face. Bovingdon Street has many graces; but gifts of mind are not conspicuous amongst them. The capacity for giving evidence is possibly an instinct and possibly an art, and even more possibly it is both. But it is a certain thing that working a mangle makes you stupid. Which, of course, accounts for Mrs. Rafferty. She called in yesterday—a little, jug-shaped woman, having a limp fringe and mysterious pains. She is a fine example of the sort of temptation which is always luring on the Doctor to display his horrible power of crispness. She is a fine example of the Bovingdon Street matron.